Abstract
Several factors affect asphalt binder and mixture characteristics. This makes pavement performance assessment a mounting task. This paper evaluates the effects of short-term aging on compactibility and volumetric properties of asphalt mixtures using the Response Surface Method (RSM). Three different binders were utilized to produce mixtures (type AC-14). Aging temperature, aging duration, and duration in a climate chamber with increased humidity and ultraviolet lighting were considered as independent variables (IV), while compactibility and volumetric properties were regarded as dependent variables (DV). The findings revealed significant impacts of aging temperature and duration on compactibility, air voids, voids in mineral aggregate, and voids filled with asphalt, while duration in the climate chamber exhibited no significant influence on the DVs. The effects of IVs on DVs varied by binder type. This was achieved through an elaborate statistical analysis. The study, finally, demonstrates the RSM’s potential to predict changes in responses from mathematical equations—converging with the experimental observation—with excellent accuracy. Potentially, pavement contractors can use this method by replacing haulage duration and mixtures’ temperatures during paving in the developed models. It enables them to predict the pavement density and adjust pressure as well as the number of roller passes to achieve the desired requirements.
Highlights
Aging is one of the governing factors that influence asphalt binders’ and mixtures’ properties
The compacted mixtures were placed in the humidity (H) and ultraviolet (UV) chamber at 25 ◦C and 85% humidity to simulate the pavement’s exposure to environmental conditions during the resting period
This study quantified the effects of the aging temperature, aging duration, and duration in the humidity and ultraviolet chamber on mixture compactibility and volumetric properties
Summary
Aging is one of the governing factors that influence asphalt binders’ and mixtures’ properties. According to Hernando and del Val (2013), fatigue cracking, rutting, top-down cracking, shrinkage cracking, reflective cracking, and thermal fatigue cracking have been identified as the most common distresses affecting the service life of pavements [7]. Aging increases the stiffness of the binder and, of the mixtures, which deteriorate the pavement performance and fatigue life. It is widely accepted that aging of asphalt mixtures comprises two main phases [8,9,10]. The first phase, known as short-term aging (STA), takes place during production, up to the laying and compaction stage. During service life, long-term aging (LTA) is the governing coupled reaction–diffusion process that affects the pavement’s performance [9]
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